The Curry Spice
Tumeric Curcumin and Cabbage Fight Prostate Cancer

January 14th
2006

Curry Spice
Tumeric Curcumin

Amazingly certain vegetables may hold “real potential for the treatment
and prevention of prostate cancer”, according to research out of
Rutgers' Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy. The scientist discovered that
the curry spice
Turmeric, also known as curcumin, when combined with
watercress, cabbage, winter cress, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale,
cauliflower, kohlrabi and turnips, significantly retarded the growth of
cancerous tumors in mice.

There is a relatively high incidence of prostate cancer in the United
States compared to India. According to the researchers this has to do
with dietary consumption of large amounts of plant-based foods rich in
phytochemicals – nonnutritive plant chemicals that have protective or
disease-preventive properties, by Indian men.

According to the researchers, patients with prostate cancer are now
combining the conventional therapies with these compounds as
alternative, supplementary or complementary medications.

According to Ah-Ng Tony Kong, a professor of pharmaceutics at Rutgers,
The State University of New Jersey, "Despite convincing data from
laboratory cell cultures, we knew little about how PEITC and curcumin
would perform in live animals, especially on prostate cancer, so we
undertook this study to evaluate how effective PEITC and curcumin might
be – individually and in combination – to prevent and possibly treat
prostate cancer." PEITC is an acronym for phenethyl isothiocyanate, the
substance found in broccoli, cauliflower and turnips.

It is the combination of tumeric and PEITC that landed the best results
when injected into the mice. According to the press release, “PEITC and
curcumin in tandem produced even stronger effects.”

Prostate is the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the US.
There are a half-million cases each year. The problem has been that
advanced prostate cancer cells are barely responsive even to high
concentrations of chemotherapeutic agents or radiotherapy.

The research appears in the January 15th issue of the journal Cancer
Research.